Although he enjoyed success with Bat Out of Hell and Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, and earned a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo for a track on the latter album, Meat Loaf experienced some initial difficulty establishing a steady career within his native United States. However, he has retained iconic status and popularity in Europe, especially the UK, where he ranks 23rd for number of weeks overall spent on the charts. He ranked 96th on VH1's '100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock'.

Meat Loaf has also appeared in over 50 movies or television shows sometimes as himself, or as characters resembling his stage persona. His most notable roles include Eddie and Dr. Scott in the American premiere of The Rocky Horror Show, Eddie in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Robert "Bob" Paulson in Fight Club, Dennis the Spice Bus Driver in Spice World, and Jack Black's father in Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (a character who, ironically, hates rock music and believes it to be evil).

Meat Loaf was born as Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Texas, United States. He was the first child of Wilma Artie (née Hukel), a school teacher and a member of the Vo-di-o-do Girls gospel quartet, and Orvis Wesley Aday, a police officer. His father was an alcoholic who would go on drinking binges for days at a time. Marvin and his mother would drive around to all the bars in Dallas, looking for Orvis to take him home. Because of this, Marvin often stayed with his grandmother, Charlsee Norrod.

Meat Loaf relates a story in his autobiography, To Hell and Back, about how he, a friend, and his friend's father drove out to Love Field to watch John F. Kennedy land. After watching him leave the airport, they went to Market Hall, which was on Kennedy's parade route. On the way they heard that Kennedy had been shot, so they headed to Parkland Hospital, where they saw Jackie Kennedy get out of the car and Governor John Connally get pulled out, although they never saw the president taken out.

In 1965, Marvin graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, having already started his acting career via school productions such as Where's Charley? and The Music Man. After attending college at Lubbock Christian College, Marvin transferred to North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas in Denton). While there, he was called in for an Army physical, which he tried to fail by gaining sixty-eight pounds (31 kg) in four and a half weeks.[citation needed]

In his autobiography, Meat Loaf claims that shortly after his mother died, his father, in a drunken rage, tried to kill him with a knife, and that he barely managed to escape after they had a bad fight.[citation needed] After Marvin got his inheritance from his mother's death, he rented an apartment in Dallas and isolated himself for three and a half months.[citation needed] Eventually a friend found him. Marvin bought a car with his inheritance and drove to California.[citation needed]

In Los Angeles, he formed his first band, Meat Loaf Soul. During the recording of their first song, Meat Loaf hit a note so high that he managed to blow a fuse on the recording monitor; he was immediately offered three recording contracts, which he turned down. Meat Loaf Soul's first gig was in Huntington Beach at the Cave, opening for Them, Van Morrison's band. While performing their cover of the Howlin' Wolf song "Smokestack Lightning", the smoke machine they used made too much smoke and the club had to be cleared out.[citation needed] Later, the band was the opening act at Cal State Northridge for Renaissance, Taj Mahal and Janis Joplin. The band then underwent several changes at lead guitar, changing the name of the band each time - including Popcorn Blizzard, and Floating Circus. As Floating Circus, they opened for The Who, The Fugs, The Stooges, MC5, Grateful Dead and The Grease Band. Their regional success led them to release a single, "Once Upon a Time" backed with "Hello." Meat Loaf joined the Los Angeles production of Hair. During an interview with New Zealand radio station ZM, Meat Loaf stated that his biggest life struggle he had to overcome was being taken seriously in the music industry. He compared his treatment to that of a "circus clown."

With the publicity generated from Hair, Meat Loaf was invited to record with Motown. They suggested he do a duet with Shaun "Stoney" Murphy, who had performed with him in Hair, to which he agreed. The Motown production team in charge of the album wrote and selected the songs while Meat Loaf and Stoney came in only to lay down their vocals. The album, titled Stoney & Meatloaf (Meatloaf being shown as one word), was completed in the summer of 1971 and released in September of that year. A single released in advance of the album, What You See Is What You Get, reached number thirty six on the R&B charts and seventy-one on Billboard Hot 100 chart. To support their album, Meat Loaf and Stoney toured with Jake Wade and the Soul Searchers, opening up for Richie Havens, The Who, The Stooges, Bob Seger, Alice Cooper and Rare Earth. Meat Loaf left soon after Motown replaced his and Stoney's vocals from the one song he liked, "Who Is the Leader of the People?" with new vocals by Edwin Starr. The album has been re-released after Meat Loaf's success, with Stoney's vocals removed. Meat Loaf's version of "Who Is the Leader of the People?" was released, but the album failed. Stoney, in Meat Loaf's absence, brought out a solo single which flopped and she quit Motown shortly after. Stoney went on to sing backing vocals for many acts, including Bob Seger and Eric Clapton, and became a full time member of Little Feat in 1993. Murphy left Little Feat in February 2009, and is pursuing solo blues and soul projects with her new band, The Shaun Murphy Band.

After the tour, Meat Loaf rejoined the cast of Hair, this time on Broadway. After he hired an agent, he auditioned for the Public Theater's production of More Than You Deserve. It was during the audition that Meat Loaf first met his future collaborator Jim Steinman. He sang a former Stoney and Meatloaf favorite of his, "(I'd Love to Be) As Heavy as Jesus" (On VH1 Storytellers, Meat Loaf shares his first introduction with Jim Steinman. Meat would revive Steinman's reaction to his intimate audience, "Well, I think you're heavy as two Jesuses to be a matter of fact!") , and with that, got the part of Rabbit, a maniac that blows up his fellow soldiers so they can "go home." Also in the show were Ron Silver and Fred Gwynne. After it closed he appeared in "As You Like It" with Raúl Juliá and Mary Beth Hurt.

He recorded a single of More Than You Deserve and had a cover of In the Presence of the Lord as its b-side. He was only able to save three copies of it because the record company wouldn't allow its press release. With those three copies he released many rare CDs featuring the two songs, which can occasionally be spotted at CD outlets.[citation needed] He later recorded it again (1981) in a slightly rougher voice.